St John's, Oxford. Matriculation Photo. 1977: Part 2

THE place for your Sisters-related comments, questions and snippets of Sisters information. For those who do not know, The Sisters of Mercy are a rock'n'roll band. And a pop band. And an industrial groove machine. Or so they say. They make records. Lots of records, apparently. But not in your galaxy. They play concerts. Lots of concerts, actually. But you still cannot see them. So what's it all about, Alfie? This is one of the few tightly-moderated forums on Heartland, so please keep on-topic. All off-topic posts will either be moved or deleted. Chairman Bux is the editor and the editor's decision is final. Danke.
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MAndrews
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Having a Sunday afternoon sort out and ... bloody hell, found a small stash of Sisters artefacts.
1. Clipping of interview in The Times.
2. International Musician and Recording World Feb '88. Four page article/interview, including colour photo of Eldritch posed with acoustic guitar, Patricia Morrison with bass.
3. Some kind of tour handbook from 1998. Includes rules on Bus Etiquette, Laminated Passes, Incidentals ("Pay them"), Production Office ("p*ss off") etc. And bits and bobs on venues and hotels e.g. for The Forum shows: Regent's Plaza Hotel, Maida Vale.
4. A s**t b/w photocopy of the said 1977 Matriculation photo. I must have run this off while in some St John's back office all those years ago. Front row, 5th from left: B Steemson. 6th row, furthest on the right, AWH Taylor, partially obscured by the tall young man in front of him. Memory tells me the suit was brown. All the bowties are white, definitely.
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Nikolas Vitus Lagartija
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Any chance of you posting a pic of this matriculation photo ? I for one wouod be interested to see it.
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mh
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I'd also be hugely interested in seeing the tour handbook.
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czuczu
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I have an old tourbook somewhere - its got a pretty detailed itinerary and a lot of contact info in it, it's nicely put together for something that could just have been a few sheets of a4
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Being645
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Nikolas Vitus Lagartija wrote:Any chance of you posting a pic of this matriculation photo ? I for one wouod be interested to see it.
Me too ... :) ...
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Mothra
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Who is B Steemson?

And I'd like to see the photo, tour book etc too if you're able to upload:-)
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czuczu
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Boyd was their manager, think he moved on around the time of the strike :/
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Mothra
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czuczu wrote:Boyd was their manager, think he moved on around the time of the strike :/
Cheers. Was dreading the answer to be someone really famous/significant that I have embarrassingly not heard of.
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Nikolas Vitus Lagartija
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So find Boyd Steemson leave Oxford at the same time as Von ? And find he also end up at Leeds Uni ? This photo raises more questions than answers!
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paint it black
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czuczu wrote:Boyd was their manager, think he moved on around the time of the strike :/
https://companycheck.co.uk/director/902 ... /companies

I think he was a roadie early doors, then the pr guy, rather than 'manager'
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czuczu
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paint it black wrote:
czuczu wrote:Boyd was their manager, think he moved on around the time of the strike :/
https://companycheck.co.uk/director/902 ... /companies

I think he was a roadie early doors, then the pr guy, rather than 'manager'
In the credits for Wake his title was 'Wide Receiver', I guess that sounds better than school mate ;D
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Nikolas Vitus Lagartija
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czuczu wrote:
paint it black wrote:
czuczu wrote:Boyd was their manager, think he moved on around the time of the strike :/
https://companycheck.co.uk/director/902 ... /companies

I think he was a roadie early doors, then the pr guy, rather than 'manager'
In the credits for Wake his title was 'Wide Receiver', I guess that sounds better than school mate ;D
Was he not the tour manager once they got beyond the Transit phase ? I wonder if this explains the first person plural (i.e. "We") used in Adrenochrome...
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Being645
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czuczu wrote:Boyd was their manager, think he moved on around the time of the strike :/
AFAIR, there was a short remark in an issue of UTR that he was fired ...

A photo of him were good for the SistersWiki, though. I think, he did spent quite some time with them in the organisational department.
I've also read somewhere that he was responsible for certain special issues of vinyls like the leather Vison Thing CD ... heaven knows, I don't ... :wink: ...
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mh
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Check the credits in your copy of Vision Thing:
Business Affairs: Boyd Steemson for Merciful Release
...
Boyd (mau-mauing the flak)
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paint it black
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Nikolas Vitus Lagartija wrote:
czuczu wrote:
paint it black wrote: https://companycheck.co.uk/director/902 ... /companies

I think he was a roadie early doors, then the pr guy, rather than 'manager'
In the credits for Wake his title was 'Wide Receiver', I guess that sounds better than school mate ;D
Was he not the tour manager once they got beyond the Transit phase ? I wonder if this explains the first person plural (i.e. "We") used in Adrenochrome...
I treat pr as tour..
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MAndrews
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Yes, I will have a shot at uploading this stuff. But be warned:

1. The photocopy is a very low quality black and white and might well frustrate as much as enlighten. Frankly rubbish quality, but if something is better than nothing ...

2. The Tour Handbook - I got it via a friend of a friend, so I don't really know its provenance or whose handwriting in it. Definitely not Eldritch - boring stuff about "the float" and filling up a rental vehicle with petrol".

3. I won't be able to do this for a few days.

Boyd Steemson. I'd be pretty certain he graduated, probably in '80. Or '81, if he was doing a 4 year course, like Eldritch started. He managed Bricheno in CNN, for sure. Definitely manned the Merciful Release phones in the Syd Barrett years (85-87). I chatted to him a couple of times. Other info available via a Google search. Some tragedy in his life.

On the matter of Eldritch's exit from Oxford. Almost nobody then, or now, fails to graduate. The St John's records - saw them at same time as photo - stated his exit was related to failure to successfully complete his Moderations (end of First Year exams). Either he was so disaffected he didn't bother doing them, had left before them or, for whatever reason, made a complete mess of them and was asked to leave. The last option is possible, but unlikely. As I said, almost nobody was, or is, just chucked out. Something disciplinary perhaps? This could be whole other thread! I'd vote for something prosaic: maladjusted teenager finds themselves stuck on a course they don't like and in a university they don't care for and takes counter-measures, none of which involve lectures, tutorials or essays. Leaves by mutual consent after fixing up an exit strategy to Leeds.
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stufarq
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MAndrews wrote:2. The Tour Handbook - I got it via a friend of a friend, so I don't really know its provenance or whose handwriting in it. Definitely not Eldritch - boring stuff about "the float" and filling up a rental vehicle with petrol".
Sounds like what's usually referred to as a tour itinerary - given to everyone actually involved with the tour (ie band and crew) so they know what's happening when and where, what's required, whose job it is etc. Can't imagine anyone wanting to fake one, so it's probably genuine, but could have belonged to anyone from the lead singer to the support act's teaboy's girlfriend.
Any more of that and we'll be round your front door with the quick-setting whitewash and the shaved monkey.
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stufarq
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MAndrews wrote:On the matter of Eldritch's exit from Oxford. Almost nobody then, or now, fails to graduate. The St John's records - saw them at same time as photo - stated his exit was related to failure to successfully complete his Moderations (end of First Year exams). Either he was so disaffected he didn't bother doing them, had left before them or, for whatever reason, made a complete mess of them and was asked to leave. The last option is possible, but unlikely. As I said, almost nobody was, or is, just chucked out. Something disciplinary perhaps? This could be whole other thread! I'd vote for something prosaic: maladjusted teenager finds themselves stuck on a course they don't like and in a university they don't care for and takes counter-measures, none of which involve lectures, tutorials or essays. Leaves by mutual consent after fixing up an exit strategy to Leeds.
You don't need to do anything requiring disciplinary action to drop out of university. You can just leave. Or not pass your exams and not be given the option of repeating the year. Or not even get as far as exams because your coursework wasn't good enough (especially if it accounts for a significant proportion of the passing grade). Or not turn up to enough classes (usually failure to attend at least 75% results in dismissal). I've seen all of these happen. Plenty of reasons before we get to deflowering the Dean's daughter or eating the Principal's dog. Or the other way around.
Any more of that and we'll be round your front door with the quick-setting whitewash and the shaved monkey.
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Nikolas Vitus Lagartija
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I would be very disappointed if it turns out that he left of his own accord or because of failure to attend. I always believed that Adrenochrome was a true tale of how he (and others) got sent down because of some gonzo episode in the late 70s.
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stufarq
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I wasn't suggesting those were necessarily more likely reasons, just taking issue with the assertion that hardly anyone fails to graduate, and that disciplinary was therefore most likely.

It had never occurred to me, but you could be right about Adrenochrome.
Any more of that and we'll be round your front door with the quick-setting whitewash and the shaved monkey.
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EvilBastard
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Nikolas Vitus Lagartija wrote:I would be very disappointed if it turns out that he left of his own accord or because of failure to attend. I always believed that Adrenochrome was a true tale of how he (and others) got sent down because of some gonzo episode in the late 70s.
I think in an interview somewhere he said that he'd left Oxford because he found out that the year abroad for the students studying Chinese would be in Beijing (which I think he referred to as Peking) and that as foreigners they wouldn't be able to leave the city limits for the duration except for organised tours to the local tractor factory (this was the early 80s, mind, so probably not far from the truth).
Also probably easier to go to another university in those days - fewer students, and maybe Leeds was not a place people wanted to go (although it was just pre-Getting Royally Fucked by the Tories, so maybe that's just speculation).
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stufarq
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I don't think he studied Chinese until he went to Leeds. Oxford was French and German.
Any more of that and we'll be round your front door with the quick-setting whitewash and the shaved monkey.
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Nikolas Vitus Lagartija
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stufarq wrote:I don't think he studied Chinese until he went to Leeds. Oxford was French and German.
That's exactly right. I covered the Leeds Uni bit on my blog a couple of years back http://sistersfan.blogspot.com.es/2012/ ... leeds.html
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DOH! That'll teach me to post late at night after a few electric lemonades! :lol:
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MAndrews
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Oxford has a minuscule drop-out rate, whatever the cause of people leaving. Someone not making to the Second Year, like Eldritch, is really rare. Far more likely to be academic work or health-related than disciplinary. If the latter, it would have been major. No blind eye's could be turned ...
Or none of the above:eg. simply rectifying a mistake - wrong course, wrong uni. Or, uni, full stop; he didn't make it over the finish line at Leeds either.
I doubt it's this: unblemished record of academic success + adept integration into key dining societies in First Year; model student and idol of his peers, and obvious future President of Oxford Union realises Mandarin is his true vocation and asks to leave; college authorities beg him to stay. A future Foreign Secretary is lost to us.
(And yeah, Gonzo, amphetamines and filth are also in the frame)
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